Patients with autoimmune diseases who do not respond appropriately to treatment may be more complex than they first appear. They could also be immunodeficient.

Treatment for anti-neutrophil cytoplasmic antibody (ANCA)-associated vasculitis has changed. What was once an acute, highly lethal disease has become a less lethal, more often chronic condition.

A Monday afternoon session will answer whether it’s safer and more effective to use mycophenolate to treat interstitial lung disease in patients with scleroderma when compared with cyclophosphamide.

Kenneth O’Rourke, MD, found his passion for educating at the beginning of his career at Wake Forest School of Medicine. As his classroom and clinical teaching career progressed, he quickly assumed administrative roles within the school’s medical student curriculum and also was named the rheumatology fellowship program director.

The success of biologics has created a conundrum for clinicians. Both of the diseases biologics are intended to treat and the biologics themselves can increase the risk for infection, heightening the need for appropriate vaccination practices.

The conventional wisdom that children are less likely to have thrombotic events than are adults is largely true — except in rheumatology.

Once recognized primarily in patients with juvenile idiopathic arthritis, macrophage activation syndrome (MAS) is now being seen as a disorder in transition for both children and adults in multiple clinical contexts: Patients with herpes virus infections, severe lupus flares, antiphospholipid syndrome, and maybe even patients with sepsis and hemorrhagic fevers such as Ebola.

Rheumatologists require no convincing that their care has great value, but payers are increasingly demanding evidence that rheumatologists add value.